Friday, February 9, 2007

The sounds of silence

Another golden oldie post:

I was talking with a class full of students today when we got off on a tangent about sounds and smells. (As I type this I have one of my extreme cases of hiccups).

I feel the smell of autumn coming on. The north winds are supposed to give an early blast to Texas and drop the temperature and the humidity. It's the feel that makes me melancholy for the days when I rode my banana-seated bike to elementary school. When I was running a fever and enjoyed staying out in the cold air by the monkey bars to cool my sweaty brow.

The sound of my life? As an old college friend, Darden Smith, sings, "It's the sounds of a midnight train." Most of my life I've lived one block away from train tracks. Now is no different, only the train whine seems even louder and more frequently.

This weekend I found a baby squirrel outside by a tree. Actually my dog found it and was playing with it. The little guy was no more than a week old, plump and pink, maybe the size of a fat pinkie finger.

I got on the Web and researched what to do. First I hung a pillowcase in the tree in hopes the mother would spot it and rescue him. Then I scanned the branches looking for a nest. Nothing.

Before they closed, I went to the local vet and got some powdered kitten milk and a dropper to feed the squirrel baby. But I left the critter out there until almost dark, knowing full well his mother was his best hope. Nothing.

I held him in my hand and he squealed as I gave him the bottle. Quickly his body was turning less pink and developing a few dark patches. I put him under a heat lamp and tried to keep him as warm as possible.

Back to the Web and more info: don't feed the milk until you hydrate him! He's in shock and dry. Get him Pedialyte and force some liquid in. A quick trip to the store and I had what was needed.

I gave him the liquid three or four more times before going to bed. It didn't look good. He was getting darker and thinner looking. By morning he was cold and gone.

It reminded me of the Tom Petty lyric: "Everything changed, then changed again. It's hard to find a friend."

Nothing lasts. The university I attended changed its name from Southwest Texas State to Texas State. That generic monicker is supposed to add some prestige. The majority of students and alumni appear to oppose the change, but it was rammed down their throats.

The dorm I lived in there has been flattened to make a parking lot. The frat house I lived in burned down years ago. SWT now lives only in my head.

That's the way of life, I guess. We make up our own stories and cling to them. They're comfortable. We recognize their sights, their sounds. And when they're gone, all that's left is silence.

Photos are life

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About Me

My articles and essays have appeared in Texas Monthly, Austin American-Statesman, The Dallas Morning News, Austin Chronicle, San Antonio Express-News, Texas Parks & Wildlife magazine and Variety. My novel Evacuation Plan is about life/death in a residential hospice and is inspired by time spent observing an actual hospice. My photographs have appeared widely in print and in Texas shows. I'm a member of the Elephant Gun photo collective. In my spare time, ahem, I also teach writing to graduate students at St. Edward's University and to undergrads at Austin Community College.

What they're saying about EVACUATION PLAN

"Tales alternately gentle, dramatic, surrealistic, that collectively affirm the beauty of being alive, even as they acknowledge that all of us face the necessity of making our own 'evacuation plan.' "-- Brad Buchholz, Austin American-Statesman

" The chapters about Matt and the short stories demonstrate O’Connell’s ability to develop sympathetic, true-to-life characters using intriguing details and compelling dialogue. The stories remind us of those times when a brief encounter with a stranger left us wondering about that person’s past. In Evacuation Plan, O’Connell satisfies that curiosity. "-- The Texas Observer

"It was very hard for me to put this book down. It carries us through the deepest meaning in life and most painful, most hopeful memories for a wide range of fascinating characters. Based in a hospice, this book could have easily resorted to cheap sensationalism, or whacked us upside the head with stereotypic melodrama, but instead it was respectful, honest, and tender. The characters will stay with you - you may even recognize some of them within your own life. "-- Award-winning author Carmen Tafolla

"An excellent, thought-provoking diversion from our own inevitable plummet toward the grave, and we highly recommend it to you, the living."-- Wayne Alan Brenner, The Austin Chronicle

"O’Connell has drawn some colourful and believable characters. The material relating to the hospice and terminal care rings true, all the way to reconciliation and forgiving."-- Dr. Roger Woodruff, International Association for Hospice & Palliative Care

"The tales are nicely written, and some are quite compelling; “The Male Nurse,” for one, is a dreamlike reverie."-- Texas Monthly

“Evacuation Plan: A Novel From The Hospice by Joe M. O'Connell is nothing short of remarkable … a novel that walks hand-in-hand with death and yet, somehow, the reader finishes the book feeling inspired to live.” – The Paisano

"A wonderful blend of lives ordinary but with sometimes extraordinary elements. We all share these stories of life in some way, despite moments of harshness or unforgiving pain. There is always a common thread of humanity and ultimately forgiveness to be found, even if it's in the last moment of life."-- Elaine Williams, author of A Journey Well Taken

"Reading Evacuation Plan is akin to unwrapping a series of small perfectly-chosen presents. Both human and humane, The book resembles a modern Spoon River Anthology with its vivid, touching glimpses into the lives of those in and around a hospice."-- Tim McCanlies, screenwriter The Iron Giant, writer/director Secondhand Lions

"In Evacuation Plan Joe O'Connell does for the process of dying what Sherwood Anderson did for middle America in Winesburg, Ohio--he shows us in brief flashes the aching beauty of the grotesque, and shows us how extraordinary small lives and quiet deaths can be."--John Blair, Drue Heinz Literature Prize winning author of American Standard

"Here's a book so rich with stories of the living, so filled with people's bountiful problems, as well as incidents of wry forgiveness, one realizes over and over the circling forces of life's completeness. It's not a sad tale nor a needless feel-good account but a balanced, sometimes comic, affirmation of what is here and what we all know is waiting."-- Carolyn Osborn, award-winning short story writer

"The broken, the hopeful, the frustrated, the clueless, and the forgiving touch one another with words, remembrances, and hands. Inevitably, readers will quietly wonder about their own evacuation plan."-- Will's Texana Monthly

O'Connell's protagonist skillfully navigates under the guise of a writer seeking raw materials for his craft in the stories of the dying, but mines and refines instead the stuff we're all made of. In this finely crafted novel, we come away with much more than the astute observation that many of the best stories begin at the end. But, then again, that notion is also worth a lot.--Jesse Sublett, cancer survivor, rocker and author of Never the Same Again

"Joe O'Connell's Evacuation Plan--this Decameron of the hospice--encompasses a paradox. Death comes for everyone, but death is the only human universal because everyone dies, and witnesses dying, with private, unspeakable shame. Yet there are a few minutes left to speak. As people die, they tell stories which spawn new stories, which remind us that death is agony, a violent struggle, but so is living."-- Debra Monroe, Flannery O'Connor Award winning author of Newfangled and Shambles